New DEUS EX game cancelled

A new Deus Ex game in early development at Eidos Montreal has been cancelled. The news broke as Embracer Group, who acquired Eidos Montreal in 2022, confirmed over 100 layoffs at the company.

"I never asked for this."

"A new Deus Ex game? I'm pretty sure everyone asked for that."

"No, I was referring to the layoffs and cancellation."

"Oh, that was unclear."

"Yeah, I get that now."

Embracer Group went on a buying spree of IPs and development studios during and just after the COVID pandemic, when video game stocks were riding high. Embracer planned to leverage a huge portfolio of talent to do a massive deal with a Saudi investment company. However, as the post-COVID video game bubble burst, the Saudi company pulled out, leaving Embracer suddenly flapping in the breeze. The company has since been shedding jobs and closing down studios at a rate of knots as it tries to balance its books.

The Deus Ex franchise is one of the best-regarded in all of video gaming, with original entry Deus Ex (2000) still often cited as one of the greatest video games ever made for its iconic story, characters and incredible freedom of choice. It is often cited as a shining example of both the RPG and immersive sim genres, with the player allowed to follow the story and events however they wish, no matter how implausible or seemingly game-breaking. Console-centric follow up Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003) was much less successful, both critically and commercially, and was believed to have killed the franchise. However, the series was brought back from the brink of extinction for Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011), which was regarded as another modern classic and sold extremely well. Sequel Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016) was critically praised, but sales were cooler, with anger over an attempt to monetise the single-player-only game with cosmetics and a cliffhanger ending which some believed made the game feel incomplete.

Eidos Montreal were moved to other projects, spearheading development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) and working with Crystal Dynamics on Marvel's Avengers (2020). Eidos Montreal then developed the well-received Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021) before the Embracer sale, and apparently began work on a new Deus Ex at that time. It was unclear if this game was a follow-up to Human Revolution and Mankind Divided (which followed the same cast and storyline) or a new story in the same universe, or even a remake of the original game.

The Deus Ex series has bounced back from total extinction the past, so hopefully that will be the case here.

DESCENT, FREESPACE, RED FACTION and SAINT'S ROW developers Volition are shut down for good

In surprising and disappointing news, the video game studio Volition has been shut down after thirty years in operation. During that time, Volition were responsible for some of the most beloved titles and series in those respective eras. The decision to shut down came after the disappointing performance of their latest game, a reboot of their Saint's Row series, and their acquisition by Swedish mega-company Embracer Group.

Volition started life in 1993 as Parallax Software Corporation, where they started work on a game called Inferno. After various deals with publishers fell through, they teamed with Interplay to release the game, now retitled Descent, in 1995. The game was immediately noteworthy for its 3D graphics and its fast-paced combat. Alongside the following year's Quake, the game became a testbed for 3D graphics cards. The game was quickly followed by Descent II (1996).

The company rebranded itself as Volition and released its space space combat simulator Descent: Freespace - The Great War (aka Conflict: Freespace - The Great War in some territories) in 1998, to immense critical acclaim. The game was praised for taking on the X-Wing and Wing Commander series and beating them both at their own game. They followed up on the game with the massively-praised Freespace 2 (1999), widely regarded even today as the single finest space combat simulator of all time. Unfortunately, a cutting of content, budget issues, no marketing and the collapse of the space combat market (which also adversely affected the same year's X-Wing: Alliance) led to the game being released with relatively little fanfare and extremely disappointing sales. Freespace 2 would go on to enjoy an extremely long tail in sales and a vibrant modding scene that continues to this day.

In 2000 Volition released Summoner, a well-received action RPG based around characters recruiting monsters they could release into combat. As part of the marketing campaign, Volition teamed with the comedy group Dead Alewives to create a Dungeons & Dragons-themed comedy video, in which characters from both Summoner and the in-development Red Faction team up to play D&D. The video was an early memetic success, and was also used to tempt video gamers to try out the then-newly released 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons itself. Lines like, "Where is the Mountain Dew?" and "I attack the darkness!" occasionally crop up in tabletop games to this day. Summoner 2 followed in 2002.

In 2001 Volition released Red Faction, a first-person shooter set on Mars. The game was noteworthy for its destructible terrain and scenery, with players able to blast through walls to create alternate paths through maps. The game was a huge, smash hit for Volition and was followed by three sequels: Red Faction II (2002), Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009) and Red Faction: Armageddon (2011).

In 2004 Volition released their first and only licensed game, The Punisher (2004), which saw Thomas Jane reprise his role as Frank Castle from the film of the same name.

In 2006 Volition made their biggest gamble by deciding to take on Rockstar Games and the Grand Theft Auto series. Volition's equivalent series, Saint's Row, leaned into GTA's ruder, wilder and more insane side, although not quite to start with. Saint's Row (2006) and Saint's Row 2 (2008) at least nominally focus on the gritty underworld crime dealings of the 3rd Street Saints, but become more focused on the doings of crazy characters like Johnny Gat (Daniel Dae Kim) as the series progressed. By Saint's Row: The Third (2011) the series had become a satire of both the GTA format and the glorification of criminal excess, with the game focusing on the Saints becoming a media brand and empire. Saint's Row IV (2013) saw the Saints take over the White House and fight to save Earth from aliens who had conquered the planet and effectively digitised it, with the Saints fighting inside a computer programme which gave them superpowers. Saint's Row: Gat Out of Hell (2015) saw the Saints going to Hell to fight Satan, as you do.

Aware that they had maxed out the viewer disbelief of the series, Volition decided to first create a side-game only nominally set in the same universe, Agents of Mayhem (2017) and then a full reboot of the series, relocating the game to a new city with a new gang and more grounded tone, in the annoyingly-named Saint's Row (2022). Neither game caught gamers' imagination, with the reaction to Saint's Row (2022) being particularly hostile due to the abandoning of previous fan-favourite characters and storylines.

Embracer Group acquired the studio in 2018, but after the initial release and disappointing reception to Saint's Row (2022), they rotated management and oversight of the studio to another subsidiary, Gearbox. As a result of declining revenues and debates over where to take the studio next, it was then decided to shutter the studio permanently.

Sad news. Descent, Freespace, Red Faction, Summoner and Saint's Row are all very worthy franchises, with excellent games and some great ideas circulating around them. Volition were never afraid to take on the big boys and win, and their no-holds-barred attitude was refreshing in an industry that all too often plays it safe. Unfortunately, it seems their downfall was kowtowing to corporate requirements to be safe and predictable, with Saint's Row (2022) not being a bad game, just a redundant one once they abandoned the very thing that set them apart, their absurdist side and idiosyncratic sense of humour.

Hopefully the staff at Volition will find new roles, and Embracer will let some of their franchises live again in new titles that don't completely miss the point of the originals.

Embracer Group strikes new deal with Warner Brothers to make new LORD OF THE RINGS movies

In a fairly neat solution to what was threatening to become a legally complex entanglement of rights, Lord of the Rings movie rights-holders Embracer Group have forged a new deal with Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema to create new feature films derived from the novel.

Not Amazon but you get the idea.

The Lord of the Rings film rights were acquired from the Saul Zaentz Company by New Line in 1997 to create a feature film trilogy based on the novel. Peter Jackson directed this trilogy to tremendous acclaim, which was released from 2001 to 2003 (New Line's parent company is Warner Brothers). Warner Brothers teamed up with MGM, who owned part of the film rights to The Hobbit, to produce a prequel trilogy based on that novel ten years later. Last year, the film rights were set to lapse, reverting back to the Saul Zaentz Company. Warner Brothers had put an animated motion picture, War of the Rohirrim, into production and claimed this was enough to satisfy their legal requirement to get a film into production before the rights were due to lapse. The Saul Zaentz Company disagreed.

Whilst legal arguments were being thrashed out, the Saul Zaentz Company suddenly sold their Lord of the Rings-related rights to the Embracer Group, the Swedish multimedia mega-corp which has been hoovering up various comic book, video game and board game companies for the past decade. Exactly why Embracer would step into such a legal minefield before it had been resolved seemed unclear.

Except, of course, it is now clear. Embracer simply created a new deal with Warner Brothers and New Line, immediately resolving all legal questions and allowing everyone to move forwards with new projects.

What those projects might be is unclear. Today's statement includes a note that the companies have no interesting in mounting a remake of Peter Jackson's seminal movie trilogy. There are also rights complications with The Hobbit (MGM, now owned by Amazon, retain some of the rights to the project) and also a question over TV rights, since Amazon struck a separate deal with the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate to launch their first TV show, The Rings of Power, which launched last year to a mixed reception. There has been some suggestion that Warner Brothers might be able to create a Lord of the Rings-derived TV series as long as it stayed within even stricter legal boundaries than Amazon, but it's not been clarified what those could be.

Any further projects will have to derive from The Lord of the Rings alone, and probably in the cinema. It's possible that film-makers will tap the Third Age for more ideas of a show, maybe focusing on ides like the settling of the Shire, the war with the Witch-King of Angmar, the adventures of the young Aragorn or possibly picking up a story with some of the surviving film characters several decades on from the movie trilogy. Such projects will have to survive the withering scorn and cynicism of fans watching out for a cash-grab exploitation of Tolkien's material.

In the meantime, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim hits cinemas on 12 April 2024, whilst Amazon's Rings of Power is currently shooting its second season for a 2024 debut.

New DEUS EX game in development

Eidos Montreal are "very early" in development on a brand new Deus Ex game. The studio was recently sold by Square Enix to Embracer Group, along with all of its attendant IP.

Eidos Montreal previously developed Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011) and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016), which were both extremely well-reviewed and Human Revolution sold very well as well. Mankind Divided underperformed according to Square's expectations and the studio moved to developing Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018), and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (2021). Eidos Montreal is currently providing assistance to Playground Games in their reboot of the Fable franchise for Microsoft.

It is unknown if the new game will continue the prequel story of Adam Jensen that began in Human Revolution and was left unresolved in Mankind Divided, or will be a sequel to the original two games, Deus Ex (2000) and Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003). It might even be a modern remake of the original game, which remains one of the most highly-acclaimed video games of all time but could do with a makeover in terms of graphics and UI (although, strictly, only if the original game's insane freedom and branching story are kept intact).

As the game is in its earliest stages and the last Deus Ex game took five years to make, it might be a fair while before we hear any more about the project. At least it's good to know the franchise will continue, eventually.

Embracer Group buys Middle-earth Enterprises, acquires video game rights to Middle-earth and possible film rights

Middle-earth Enterprises, the rights-holding and media company for works related to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and, partially, The Hobbit, has been sold by its owners, the Saul Zaentz Company, to Swedish video game mega-company Embracer Group. The terms of the deal are unknown, but the Saul Zaentz Company previously valued the property at over $2 billion.

The history of the Middle-earth media rights is complex, but can be boiled down as follows: in 1968 J.R.R. Tolkien sold the screen rights and related merchandising rights to his novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) to United Artists. United Artists sold the rights to film producer Saul Zaentz in 1976, who in turn set up Middle-earth Enterprises to handle the deal. United Artists included the full rights to The Lord of the Rings but retained some of the rights to The Hobbit, on the basis that any film adaptation would start with the first book before moving onto the sequel. However, Zaentz circumvented this by producing an animated film based directly on The Lord of the Rings in 1978, with Ralph Bakshi directing. MGM bought United Artists in 1981, acquiring their rights to The Hobbit in the process. Although Bakshi's film was unsuccessful, its existence allowed Middle-earth Enterprises to licence merchandising, including video games, colouring books and so on, as long as they were nominally related to the Bakshi film. A legal clarification also allowed the company to produce spin-off merchandise derived from the novels in very narrow fields, allowing for video games based on The Hobbit and the book version of The Lord of the Rings to follow.

In 1997, New Line Cinema acquired the film rights to The Lord of the Rings from Middle-earth Enterprises. Negotiations with MGM over The Hobbit fell through, so Peter Jackson proceeded with a feature film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings by itself, released to critical acclaim and mass commercial success in 2001-03. The legal agreement between Middle-earth Enterprises/The Saul Zaentz Company allowed for New Line to retain the film rights as long as new films were produced or fresh agreements could be made, otherwise the rights would revert. New Line merged with Warner Brothers Pictures in 2008.

After very complex negotiations, a deal was struck between New Line Cinema, Warner Brothers, Middle-earth Enterprises and MGM to produce a movie trilogy based on The Hobbit. This reached the screens between 2012 and 2014 and was commercially successful, but critically derided. In 2017 the Tolkien Estate clarified that they retained television rights to the Middle-earth franchise and reached an agreement worth $250 million with Amazon Prime Television to produce a TV show based on the books. This show, The Rings of Power, debuts on Amazon on 2 September after almost three years in production. Amazon reached a deal with New Line/Warner Brothers to allow them to use some aspects of the visual design of the films if necessary.

In June 2021, Warner Brothers announced they were developing a new animated film, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, as a cinematic release. It was later claimed this was a rights-holding exercise, allowing Warner Brothers to retain ownership of the film rights for a further period of time. However, the Saul Zaentz Company argued that an animated film did not fulfil the terms of the contract. As a result, in February 2022, the Saul Zaentz Company and Middle-earth Enterprises announced they had regained control of the film rights and would be selling them off to the highest bidder, with a minimum price of $2 billion.

Warner Brothers subsequently argued that by putting The War of the Rohirrim into production, they retained the feature film rights to the franchise. It is believed the two companies then went into arbitration.

The news today, to some extent, kicks the can down the road. By selling the entirety of Middle-earth Enterprises to Embracer, the Saul Zaentz Company gets paid and basically leaves Embracer to make the legal arguments themselves.

The move certainly comes as a shock to the industry, who expected the sale to be delayed until the legal dispute had been resolved, and certainly did not expect an overseas video game company to swoop in and buy out the rights. With Amazon producing the Rings of Power TV show and having recently acquired MGM (and their rights related to The Hobbit), it was assumed that they would buy out the Saul Zaentz Company's rights. This move suggests that either Embracer offered far more money than Amazon were willing to pay, which seems highly unlikely, or Amazon decided it didn't want the extended franchise rights, which also seems unlikely. It'll be interesting to see what the explanation is for that.

In the meantime, Embracer have certainly acquired the video game rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Projects already underway, such as Daedalic Entertainment's upcoming video game The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, are unaffected by the move.

Swedish video game company Embracer Group was founded in 2011 and began buying up smaller publishers and developers by the dozen, soon expanding into other media areas. As of August 2022, the company owns Dark Horse Media (owners of Dark Horse Comics), Asmodee (the owners of board game companies including Asmodee and Fantasy Flight), Gearbox Entertainment, THQ Nordic and Saber Interactive. Middle-earth Enterprises will continue to operate as a discrete company, with its video game operations to be handled in collaboration with Embracer Freemode. 

Square Enix offload DEUS EX and TOMB RAIDER studios and IPs

Square Enix has announced an intent to sell several of its highest-profile studios and IPs to the Embracer Group. Under the mooted deal, Embracer would buy the studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal (totalling 1,100 employees), along with IPs including Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Thief and Legacy of Kain. Currently in-development projects, like a new Tomb Raider game, will continue under the new owners.

Japanese company Square Enix bought Eidos and Crystal Dynamics in 2009 to shore up their overseas development portfolio. Initially the deal seemed to go well, with Crystal Dynamics releasing a Tomb Raider reboot trilogy (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider) and Eidos Montreal releasing the well-received and high-selling Deus Ex: Human Revolution. However, subsequent releases seem to have underperformed, at least according to Square Enix's expectations. A Thief reboot in 2014 sold poorly and got mediocre reviews, whilst Deus Ex: Mankind Divided sold poorly in 2016, after a controversial attempt to leverage microtransactions in a single-player game. The Crystal Dynamics-developed Marvel's Avengers also underperformed in 2020, which seemed to impact on sales of Guardians of the Galaxy in 2021 (despite stronger reviews).

However, the long tail on these releases is often quite significant, with the Deus Ex and Tomb Raider games continuing to sell well long after their release. This has led to memes as fans criticise Square for cancelling projects too quickly and in a kneejerk fashion, despite them eventually working out.

The Embracer Group is a Swedish video game holding company and publishes games under the names Nordic Games and THQ Nordic. Embracer recently acquired Gearbox Entertainment, creators of the Borderlands franchise, and board game company Asmodee as a way into the physical gaming market.

What is remarkable is the price: Embracer will get their hands on some of the most popular and beloved IPs in gaming for $300 million, which seems very cheap, and may reflect Square Enix's decision to get out of the overseas market to refocus on their core Japanese brands.

If approved by all the relevant parties, the deal should complete in mid-2023. It's likely the first game released under the new deal will be a new Tomb Raider game, whilst Deus Ex fans will be crossing their fingers for a new game in that franchise.